Twitter’s Chief Information Security Officer Is Leaving the Company

Michael Coates departs to start his own firm

Twitter’s chief information security officer is leaving the company, a Twitter spokesperson has confirmed to Adweek.

Michael Coates, who has been Twitter’s CISO since early 2015, is departing to start his own firm, according to The Verge, which first reported the news. Coates will be replaced in the interim by Joseph Camilleri, who is currently a member of Twitter’s information and security risk team.

The news comes during a series of security shake-ups at some of the biggest digital platforms. On Tuesday, Michal Zalewski, Google’s director of information security engineering, said he was leaving the firm at the end of March after 11 years, tweeting that “it’s been a fun ride.”

The New York Times reported on Monday that Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief security officer, would be leaving in August. However, in a tweet, Stamos said he was staying with the company but changing roles.

“Despite the rumors, I’m still fully engaged with my work at Facebook,” he wrote. “I’m currently spending more time exploring emerging security risks and working on election security.”

While Silicon Valley has often portrayed itself as a fun, secure and trustworthy place, Faceboook’s recent revelations of misused and improperly accessed data by third parties has heightened the level of scrutiny on companies like Facebook and Google to maintain user privacy.

The issue is also affecting the broader advertising and marketing industries, which are grappling with how to comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation that will be enacted in May for any company collecting or using data within the EU.